Free Republic

These are the latest victims of New York's 'insane' housing laws that have given way to a wave of absurd squatting incidents where homeowners find themselves forced to go to court to kick out brazen would-be tenants. Denis and Juliya are a married couple who invested $530,000 in a property in Jamaica, Queens, several years ago. On March 5, a broker they were working with visited the property for a site check before allowing tenants to move in and found the locks had been changed.

An 83-year-old pensioner who has lived in the same council house for 74 years is being evicted after the death of his sister left him living alone. Edward Meakins fears moving out of his life-long home will kill him but Barnet Council wants to use the three-bedroom property for one of the rising number of families needing large council homes. He moved into the house in Cricklewood, north-west London, with his parents and four siblings in 1936 but is now the only resident after his sister Margaret died in May. Following her death, he signed a temporary contract taking on...

"The melting pot" analogy for immigration has taken on new meaning in this city of 25,000. It could be said that the heat has been turned up here and that the bubbling contents of the pot are coming apart rather than coming together. Behind is a summer unity picnic in which Kristin Ostrom, Gabriela "Gabby" Ayala and other members of a group called Nebraska Is Home tried to ease the tension between the white population and Hispanics and other relatively new immigrant faces. Ahead, as early as November, is a court confrontation in Lincoln for which other Fremont citizens have...

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) Suggested last week that health care reform would save on the money spent on health care for illegal aliens.

ATLANTA — If Grady Memorial Hospital succeeds in closing its outpatient dialysis clinic, Tadesse A. Amdago, a 69-year-old immigrant from Ethiopia, said he would begin “counting the days until I die.” Rosa Lira, 78, a permanent resident from Mexico, said she also assumed she “would just die.” Another woman, a 32-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras, said she could only hope to make it “back to my country to die.” The patients, who have relied for years on Grady’s free provision of dialysis to people without means, said they had no other options to obtain the care that is essential to...

SODUS NY— The Border Patrol is again being accused of racial profiling in Wayne County, this time at the dawn of the annual apple harvest that brings thousands of migrants to the area. According to Migrant Support Services organizer John Ghertner — who was there taking photos — and Mi Ranchito owner Primitivo Vasquez, Border Patrol agents blocked off the two entrances to Vasquez’s store Aug. 29, demanding identification from customers before allowing them in. Mi Ranchito is a specialty grocery store that sells Mexican foods, calling cards and other items targeted at migrant workers. Vasquez was born in Mexico...